Wednesday, May 20, 2009

I was out last night for my usual run, needing to get out and burn off some energy. I did the usual loop to 14th Street, without really noticing much. Perhaps I'm in a bit of a rut, although I do enjoy running along the river.

Yesterday was a little on the cool side, too, with threatening rain and all that. Gee, much like today.

Anyway, a co-worker suggested we try and get out today (Wednesday) since it's the day he doesn't work from home. He had a route figured out that would take us to Glenmore Landing and then along the Glenmore reservoir to the marina and back.

We headed down the stairs and outside. A little bit on the chilly side, but nothing to slow us down. An extra nice bit was there was no wind to drive the chill through our running cloths.

I'd forgot to start the GPS until we were across the overpass over the C-Train tracks and were about to cross Southland Drive. From there we headed northward, and from there, our route was a mystery.

Jerry had scoped it out, of course, winding through the various neighbourhoods. I recognized none of it, not even recognizing Elbow Drive until we'd crossed it. And then coming up to the sound wall that protects the adjacent neighbourhoods from the traffic roar on 14th Street.

A long wait at the light to cross, and up 90th Avenue, that long gently rising hill that for some reason was so memorable from the Police Half Marathon a few weeks ago. Only we crossed 90th and got on the path behind Glenmore Landing to the loop around the reservoir.

We took the low path along the shoreline westward toward the marina, watching a motorboat chug out to a floating pier lined with small sail boats and covered with a couple of dozen people.

At the marina, we looped back onto the upper path and headed back east, rejoining our path outbound and retracing our steps.

The nice thing about this loop is that it's almost all up hill to 90th and 14th, so the return is a long descent back toward the Southland C-Train station.

Good run, perfect distance for a lunch time noodle through the neighbourhoods.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

It's actually a lovely day out, if a little grey. Windless and clear, and the mountains on the west horizon have a kind of glowing quality, probably because the cloud cover out that way is thinner or higher. It's a lovely sight.

After a short L n K, I was out the door and across the street. Walked a block or so as usual, and then started running as I came up beside the playground. The grey is a little bit bleah, but it's the kind of day, and maybe a kind unique to the prairie, that's calm and mild, a kind of eye-of-the-storm kind of calm.

I took the Centre Street bridge across the river and then down on the promenade. Quiet for such a beautiful morning, but busy enough. The first thirty minutes, as usual, were accompanied by the aches and stiffness that seem to have been accumulating for the last few years. By the time I reached Crowchild I was sufficiently loosened up and those aches were put away for the day.

I stayed on the south side of the river, running along below Spruce Cliff and along the tracks. There were no trains at all this morning. I wonder if that's because of it being a holiday weekend. But when I got to the first crossing, it struck me that I hadn't heard or seen any sign of a train. Usually, there are two or three while I'm out there.

By the time I got to Edworthy I was in head down and go mode. The first walk break after crossing the bridge and heading back toward downtown, I could feel a pull in the hip telling me that I'd been pushing it. I kept it up, too, up to the walk break just before reaching the foot bridge to Prince's Island, so that I can feel it not only in the hip and glutes, but all the way down the back of the legs.

The climb up The Path Under The Stairs was no power run. I was actually pretty slow by then, so more of a shuffle. At the top of the bluff I didn't push all that hard either, since by then there's less than a kilometre to go.

Nice run, finished by a good stretch. About time, too, I've been slacking too much.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

I'm working from home today, and the plan is usually to get a noon hour run. Today I was tempted by other considerations L n K but in the end I was out on my route at noon sharp.

Some time during the morning, it had started to rain, and part of the morning it was more or less a downpour. By noon, it had backed off to a drizzle. I went for shorts and a long sleeve tee with my running vest. About ten minutes into the run I was wishing I had thought to grab my running gloves, too.

Because of the rain, it was a little splishy-splashy in places. Just before the C-Train bridge, I got a bit of a soaking courtesy of a passing car. Because the path is about three feet above the roadway, it was only my legs that got wet.

On the 14th Street bridge, it was a different story. The two foot high wall between the traffic and the pedestrian path ensures that if any water is splashed by passing traffic, the trajectory needed to clear the wall is approximately chest high by the time any water following it reaches any people walking across. The nice thing about the fabrics used for running close is that they don't hold the water, so it wasn't bad.

By the time I reached the helicopter pad, about three quarters of the way around the loop, my hands were finally warming up. There were more people out than I expected given the weather, though still it was pretty quiet out there.

I took the stairs fairly aggressively, and they didn't slow me down much. Perhaps the week off was the break I needed to be able to do that. At the top, I took to the street, since the trail at the top of the bluff was a little soggy.

I took over a week off from running after the half. No reason other than I was mostly lazy. Well, and I supposed there were a few days where the stiffness was present, so no runs during the week following. And no run on the following weekend either, since I was L n K out of town.

It wasn't a power run or anything like that either, just a chance to get out and shake some cobwebs off. It was a bit cool, a bit breezy, not wonderful weather, rather nice for running.